


these memories, they haunt me

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (indelibly_ellie)



Category: Merlin (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, gaybies ftw, i have decided to play with kara's coming out as well, since apparently kara is not canonically gay, smol bean Lena FTW, whoo, yay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-29 09:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8484442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indelibly_ellie/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: I know you'll be there for me when the time comes.Kara's departure is hasty, and for that, Lena is grateful.If she'd lingered a few seconds more, she would have seen Lena's lowered eyes flash gold.My interpretation of the Lena/Kara scene from 2x04 and Lena's shady look at the end of it.





	1. awakening

**Author's Note:**

> The Morgana reincarnation!AU you didn't know you needed.

It starts out small, at first.

 

Things happening in her office with no reasonable explanation.

 

A pen rolling across her desk to her waiting fingers.

 

A bottle of scotch exploding after she terminates a particularly stressful phone call with a string of embarrassingly crude expletives.

 

A crumpled piece of paper that bursts into  _flame_  within a clenched fist- fire that leaves _no mark_ upon her skin.

 

Then the dreams begin.

 

Dreams of a woman with a warm smile who calls her 'lady' and picks her wildflowers.

 

Dreams of a boy who teaches her how to use a sword, a boy who becomes a man burdened by the weight of a crown- and a kingdom.

 

Dreams of a man with piercing eyes that gleam with a gold light that she quickly learns to fear when that same glow begins to emanate from her own.

 

He calls Lena by a name that isn't  _hers_ , but he says it with longing- a _caress_ and a _plea_ and a _demand_ all at once.

 

_Morgana_.

 

They're harmless enough at the start, but as the weeks pass, her dreams- her  _nightmares_ \- grow ever darker.

 

Water, given to her by the man with power that matches her own.  _Like calls to like, creatures born of magic, two sides of the same coin_. Friend, enemy,  _doom_ \- he has many labels but she calls him  _Merlin_. Her lungs spasm, throat clenching as she gasps for air she can no longer  _breathe_. He reaches for her and she fights against his grip until fear grips her  _tighter_  and she succumbs to the lesser of two evils.

 

A woman-  _sister_ \- dying in her arms. The room collapses around her as she  _screams_ , wordlessly, the stone of the castle crumbling in place of her heart.

 

Soon enough, Lena finds herself afraid to close her eyes at night for fear of choking on the blood that rises in her throat as a sword cuts through her body with crippling _ease_.

 

But she was-  _is_ \- human, so sleep becomes an inevitability she cannot escape.

 

* * *

She wakes up screaming, hands clawing at her abdomen, searching for a wound that isn't  _there_ , and something across the room  _shatters._  

 

_I don't know what's happening to me._

 

When she looks around, gasping for breath, there are shards of glass are scattered across the floor, the remains of what once used to be the vase perched atop her mahogany dresser.

 

_I don't know what's happening to me._

 

The lights flicker ominously as she pulls her legs up to her chest, burying her face against her knees in an effort to erase the sight of  _golden_  eyes staring back at her from the full-length mirror that  _fractures_  as she begins to weep.

 

_I don't know what's happening to me._

 

* * *

 

_I_   _know you'll be there for me when the time comes._

 

Kara doesn't answer, and Lena doesn't elaborate, but she prays-

 

to dragons, to  _magic_ , to anything- anyone- that may hear her

 

-that Kara  _understands_.

 

Kara's departure is hasty, and for that, Lena is grateful.

 

If she'd lingered a few seconds more, she would have seen Lena's lowered eyes flash  _gold_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a review, house a displaced alien from a dying planet.


	2. oblivion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised via Tumblr, I'll be posting several pieces of writing within the week. Here's one. :)
> 
> Set immediately after 2x05: Crossfire. A continuation of the final scene. I've taken the liberty of changing the canon to have Alex already have come out to Kara/Kara not being an idiot and figuring out Alex's insane crush on Maggie before 2x06.
> 
> *WARNING* This chapter contains possibly triggering material. Read at your own risk.

i. Lena

 

"Supergirl." She says her name with open disdain, drawing out the syllables as she steps closer to Lena, a cruel smirk twisting her lips. "I didn't realize you were so closely associated with members of the House of El."

 

Lena doesn't bother asking how her mother knew so much about her Kryptonian visitor- if there was anyone who supported Lex's anti-alien agenda more fervently than Lillian Luthor, she has yet to meet them. Lena moves as if to adjust the bangles around her wrist, fingers resting lightly on the cool gold cuff around her wrist as she digs the nail of her thumb into the pale underside of her arm. The pain helps ground her, helps to stifle the rising anger beginning to seep into her veins. She knows it's a risk, but she keeps her gaze level, eyes firmly locked onto her mother's as she speaks.

 

"She saved my life tonight. We should both be grateful that she's chosen to overlook my last name."

 

"Your brother was trying to help people, Lena. You shouldn't be ashamed of that." Lillian's voice grows hard as she rounds on her daughter, almost nose to nose now. "Nothing good can come out of whatever relationship you have with that _menace_."

 

"Well, Mother, we should just be glad of the fact that my relationship with Supergirl doesn't involve mass murder."

 

_Crack!_

 

She hears the slap before she actually feels it, her mother's hand coming down on her face with the force of a whip. She stumbles back until she feels herself hit the edge of her desk, fingers grasping at its solid surface as though she could steal its strength to bolster her faltering control. Her free hand darts up to cover her stinging cheek as she moves, eyes automatically shuttering to hide the gold that she knows has begun to corrode the green of her irises. 

 

"Get _out_." Lena's voice is far more brittle than she'd care to admit, but her tone- her tone is positively _glacial_.

 

"Lena-"

 

"Get out!" Her voice throbs with a power that she hopes her mother will mistake for anger. 

 

"Fine. But mark my words- you'll soon see that your brother was right about these alien invaders. They aren't like  _us_ , Lena. They aren't like _human_." Lillian's words are cool and clipped, lecturing Lena in a way that makes her feel like a child all over again, helpless against her mother's manipulations.

 

The door swings shut behind Lillian, and the sound of it echoes around the room with a resounding finality.

 

Her words bury themselves in Lena's mind, rattling at the forefront of her thoughts like a disease.

 

_They aren't like us, Lena._

 

When Lena finally steps away from her desk, knees steady enough to allow her to stand on her own, she turns to find a blackened handprint- _her handprint_ \- burned into its mahogany surface. And just like that, she can't _breathe_.

 

_They aren't **human**._

 

Cold dread pools in the pit of her stomach as a bitter realization strikes her with the same force as her mother's blow. 

 

Lillian Luthor would _never_ accept a child with golden eyes.

 

_(Uther Pendragon hadn't either.)_

 

* * *

 

She just wants to sleep. Sleep and dream of nothing- no visions, no flashbacks, no _pain_.

 

Her memories- _Morgana's_ memories- are clearer now and grow clearer still. She remembers running to Gaius' chambers, pleading- _begging_ \- for something to give her just one night of dreamless sleep.

 

_Just. One. Night._

 

Medicine was primitive then, and the effects of his potions had become increasingly futile against the strength of her growing powers.

 

Powers he had chosen to hide from her, abilities he had tried to dismiss as simple nightmares, never mind the fact that his lies- lies that _sweet_ , _trusting_ Morgana had dutifully swallowed alongside his useless draughts- had wreaked havoc on her sanity.

 

Medicine is not so primitive now.

 

Lex's meteoric rise to villainous notoriety had left Lena unable to sleep for days on end. Months later, unused bottles of the prescriptions that the therapist she'd been pushed into meeting with still clutter her nightstand. She'd been proud then, too proud to consider using them. It was the last shred of pride she had to cling to, the fact that she had thought herself strong enough to resist using them.

 

She has no such pride now.

 

She just doesn't mean to take so _many_.

 

Still, one by one, the tiny white pills find a home in her stomach, washed down with generous gulps of liquor. It quickly becomes automatic- pour, open, swallow, _drink_.

 

She doesn't know how long it takes- how many she takes. Empty bottles are scattered around her.

 

All she knows is the slow, gradual numbness that makes her limbs too heavy to lift and her head spin. A slow smile graces her lips as she succumbs to the beckoning darkness.

 

Oblivion welcomes her into its all-too familiar embrace with open arms.

 

She doesn't bother trying to resist.

 

* * *

 

ii. Kara

 

She doesn't mean to eavesdrop, doesn't mean to pry, but Lena's hammering pulse leaves her worried enough to keep her hovering just above the balcony, trying her best not to listen as she keeps her senses focused on Lena.

 

_Only on Lena._

 

But when Kara hears the slap, she flinches so hard that she almost falls out of the sky.

 

It takes everything she has not to rush into Lena's office right then and there and launch Lillian Luthor into space.

 

This much she tells Alex over pints of Chocolate Therapy back at her apartment, gesturing wildly with both spoon and ice cream until the flimsy carton gives out, splattering both sisters with chunks of chocolate fudge and cookie bits that Alex bemoans all the way to Kara's bathroom to shower and the Kryptonian herself rushes to the sink to dispose of the sad remains of her milky treat.

 

What she doesn't tell her sister is how her heart had  _shattered_ at the sound of Lena's shuddering breaths as she broke down in the wake of her mother's departure.

 

Alex passes out soon afterwards, stealing not only Kara's bed, but her favorite fluffy bathrobe as well. Kara's glad of this, because it makes it that much easier for her to slip into her suit and out of her window to swing by Lena's penthouse apartment on the other side of the city.

 

When she finds Lena sprawled across the floor of her unlit apartment, unconscious and unresponsive, surrounded by empty orange bottles and a half-empty bottle of amber liquid, all rational thought leaves her brain as she takes her into her arms and flies as fast as Lena's fragile human body will allow her in order to reach the hospital, cradling the other woman against her chest and praying to Rao that the spaces between her breaths will grow no larger.

 

Later, bleary-eyed and worried sick to her stomach in one of the hospital's many waiting rooms beside an equally concerned Jess, Kara will peer through the lead frames of her glasses and find images of Supergirl cradling Lena's prone form in her arms plastered across every media platform, videos of her screaming for someone to _help her_ in front of National City Hospital going viral within minutes of uploading.

 

She will find these images and use every ounce of control she has left to keep her fingers from shattering her phone as she takes in the desperation etched across her features

 

-a look of fear so eerily similar to the expression on Alex's face at the realization that Maggie was gone, taken by the Infernian-

 

and wonder if she and her sister don't share more commonalities than she'd previously thought.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Sorry?
> 
> Leave a review, house a displaced alien from a dead planet.


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